Hey, I Moved

Hello again everyone! It’s been awhile since I was required to write a blog post – welcome to my first one that I chose to do without it being for an assignment. I think this means it has sunk in that I’m no longer a student.

As most of you know, I have recently relocated across the pond to London, England. I’ve been in the UK for 11 days now, and can say I’m finally starting to find myself getting settled. There have been many twists and turns from the first day I arrived, drenched in sweat, an obvious foreigner dragging more luggage than she can handle, to today, drinking coffee in my new home (I have yet to accept an offer of tea – I’m not ready to give up my coffee yet). When I arrived, my first priority was to find a home so that when my week was up at the hostel I wouldn’t be homeless. Within 2 days of searching, I confirmed a place and was set to move in that week!

With that taken care of, I set out to do all the boring stuff associated with moving. I got myself a fancy new UK number (which I cannot for the life of me memorize), and bought an umbrella of course. I now carry it with my 24/7 in my purse. This is also where I ran into some small roadblocks with technical issues regarding my visa, which are still being worked out, but everyone here has been very helpful and I’m optimistic. Of course I had to get some sightseeing in and so I hit up the British Museum.

Once I was all moved in, I could start settling and explore my new neighbourhood, which is on the very edge of West London – Uxbridge. I spent some time (too much) shopping for the essentials (and ended up with a couple bags of non-essentials – oops), and finding my favourite coffee spot. This past Saturday the agency I’m with, Engage Education, held an induction event at the University of Westminster. It was so good to see and reconnect with familiar faces from the iday event I attended back in April, and to meet new teachers in the same kind of situation as myself. A celebratory supper and evening was in order as we explored just a small part of central London.

I will finally get into my classroom on Wednesday this week and am so ready to start working! This week I’m hoping to do a bit more exploring and a bit more settled so that I’m ready for my career to start next week!

Before I close off, I thought I’d share some of my thoughts over the last 11 days:

Nothing is more humbling than squinting at coins trying to figure out how much they are all worth. I’ve resorted to only paying with bills, sorry – with notes, and now my wallet weighs about 10 pounds just from coins

One of my favourite discoveries – Poundland; the equivalent of the Dollar Tree

With all the different cultures and travellers here, I don’t even know what a real British accent sounds like anymore

I thought “cheers” meant “goodbye” for the first while, and it was only after numerous weird interactions I finally figured out it meant “thanks”

2 thoughts on “Hey, I Moved”

Reblogged this on Engage Education Canada and commented:
One of our newest teachers, Ashley has written a great blog about arriving and getting settled in the UK — definitely a good read for those who are heading overseas to teach for the first time!